Twisted Empire
by Vampiric Hyde
Summary: Giovanni's thoughts... It's short, so there isn't much to explain. *shrug* ...enjoy?


Twisted Empire

I have found that I no longer have the heart for this.

The heart... Is that correct? Or is it the soul? Either way, I don't care much anymore. At one time this might have intruiged me, might have even brought me back. Now it only mocks me, flaunting my own ineptitude in my face, making it apparent all around me.

I can feel the sting in the air now, though it has, with most else, ceased to matter. I no longer strive for what I once desired. Pain lurks everywhere; I have seen the pain. Now I care not for it. Now it too has ceased to matter. Gone away, carried by an unstoppable and incalculable gust of wind. Banished away, into the storm.

Perhaps my thoughts are now incoherent. Perhaps what I am trying to say has not gotten through. In fact, I know it hasn't. I find it hard to think straight, yet here I am, trying. One last shot at explaining this. Explaining to myself more than anyone else. If there is a way to come to understanding, it will be through this. I won't find it, in all likelihood, but what more have I got to lose?

I've been on top of the world; at least, that's what some have seen. I've been places that many have never seen, have heard what many have never even dreamed. My position was envied by many, even sought by some who would take it but failed. Power was mine.

Or, at least, it would seem so. Was it, though? Can anyone ever really own power? Power is a force to be reckoned with; can one ever truly hold power? Or, as seems the truth to me, does power control the individual?

Certainly power leads people to strange ends. Those who say money is power are incorrect; those who say money is the strongest force are only half-correct. Money is a part of power. Through coins and cash, power flows. That was what I felt origanally, that pulled me to this. Money. Thoughts of power.

Power eventually strangles those who try for it, as I have found. It doesn't matter, though. I no longer care for the power. Someone else may have it. Someone may kill me now; I wouldn't care at all. Death would be preferable to this state.

I have reigned over a twisted empire. The souls working within the walls of this bleak network have not seen this as I have, I fear. They see thier work as glorious, as rewarding, perhaps even as darkly romantic. Yet it isn't. It's killing all of us and everything we touch. The theft, the murder... It's strangling our senses, our minds, our souls.

We have made a mockery of human life. We have taken what is glorious and made it into something terrible and horrifying. Angelic beings have been tranformed into demons, black and distorted. What was once sacred is now nothing but dust beneath the feet of the demons. We, the demons.

Trampling what was lovely--that's what we've been doing all this time. At the beginning, I didn't see it. I only saw the marvelous brilliance, the indestructible complexity of the team. To lead this team was an honor that could never be matched. I thought. Yes, I thought many things or, perhaps, I didn't think. I only felt, and I felt wrong.

Time has unfogged the glass and I see it now. See the death for what it is, the senseless murder. This is blasphemy on the human soul. Not to heaven, no, for the is no heaven. There is only humanity, only the beings that walk this earth and then all too soon depart from it. Humanity is the real, and we have sinned deeply against humanity. We have scarred it. We have ruined it.

Now that I know this, I cannot continue. This is the end. Yes, the very end for me. I may continue to walk onward, to speak, but it will not truly be me. I will have departed from myself. I will have laid myself to rest. I will become that veritable machine that I have often been seen as.

That is the fitting way. The twisted empire must be ruled by a machine, for no feeling person can sustain it for long. I have been trampled by it, I now understand this. What I have felt matters nothing anymore, because this is the end.

Farewell, for now I give myself to the nothing of the end.


End file.
